Centres and Cities

I’m sure you’re right about the link between street morphology and attractiveness to business. Centres seem to do one of three things through time. They either:

1. consolidate and grow (London, Paris)

2. move (Jeddah)

3. implode (Sunderland).

Oh, and some places:

4. never have a functioning centre (Skelmersdale, UK New Towns) because they were designed in ignorance of the importance of a) grid continuity and b) multi-scale centrality – properties measured by Space Syntax models

or

5. divide and reunite (Berlin) but we can’t blame the architects for that!

Email to Paul Swinney at the Centre for Cities